Which object is heavier: an empty water bottle or a small rock?
A few weeks ago, we found a seesaw in the gym. The 3A children immediately knew what to do and took turns going on the seesaw. As we were having so much fun bouncing up and down, a question popped in our heads. What makes us go up and down on a seesaw? This investigation helped the 3A educators come up with a topic for the Buckle My Shoe Science Fair. Weight! After speaking with our science fair mentor, Deborah, (Alexandra's mom in our class) we realized weight = mass x gravity. Since gravity is constant on Earth, we were able to find the mass of objects (how heavy things are)!
First we came up with our own hypothesis: Bigger objects are always heavier than smaller objects. In order to test our hypothesis, Clare brought two items: an empty water bottle and a small rock. After she showed the two objects, she asked: Which object do you think is heavier? Most of our friends replied, "the water bottle" because " it is bigger than the rock".
So we placed those two objects on a balance scale and found that our hypothesis was wrong because the small rock was heavier than the empty water bottle! The children were so amazed to see different results than they expected.
We hope to dive deeper into the topic by exploring more with balance scales as well as spring scales!
The children are exploring balancing scales by placing different objects on the scale and seeing which side is heavier.
